


Raised

by PilferingApples



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, Gen, and the backdrop of the BBC miniseries tie in book cover, honestly just my own denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/pseuds/PilferingApples
Summary: In a timeline where things go a little differently, Fantine, Javert and Valjean team up to recover Cosette from the Thenardiers, in an eyebrow-raising adventure that will help them all learn a little something about redemption, compassion, and judgey expressions.(based mostly on the 2019 BBC miniseries book tie-in cover)





	Raised

“ I never realized the horrible double standard I had established in my workshop” said Mayor Madeleine. “I’m so glad you came to talk to me as soon as you were fired; I can stop this injustice immediately. And frankly, the fact that you don’t have any savings to fall back on suggests that I should probably raise everyone’s wages, while I’m changing workplace policy. I have to confess that my concepts of relative finances are a little shaky.” He frowned, with the mighty solemnity of a man wrestling with his conscience and his backstory, and also with maths, which are the worst thing humanity ever invented, and enable Classical regularity, but are sometimes useful in considering matters of social justice when they interweave with financial matters, as all things sometimes must in our tragically bourgeois era. 

“ I only dared to speak to you because everyone said you were so kind.” said Fantine. “ So probably you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself; obviously your intentions are good even if your policies sometimes fall short. Anyway, no one expects you to outline a comprehensive plan for systemic social reform in our worker orientations!” She raised an eyebrow to indicate Irony, or possiby Sarcasm, or maybe just how well the animators could utilize the theory of stretch-and-squash,it wasn’t really clear. 

“At any rate”, said the Mysterious Madeleine, “obviously the best solution to this problem is an onsite daycare, where any parents can be sure their children will be well cared for. Your Cosette will be the first child enrolled. Come! Let’s get that weird intense cop that always follows me around and looks at me weird whenever I lift things, and go fetch your daughter; he must be bored.” Monsieur Definitely No Other Name Than Madeleine quirked an eyebrow to indicate that this was something in the way of a Joke, since no one knows these things without eyebrow indications. “That way you’ll have civil and legal authority backing you up, if those Thenardiers are really as criminal as you fear.” 

“ If?” Fantine quirked an eyebrow, as if to say oh, you.

****  
****  
“ Of course we’re willing to let you take the child–always waited for this happy day– only, of course, there are expenses. Bills that must be paid. You know, we’re not rich! But one doesn’t think of these things with children! Still, we have our bills to pay too, you know.” Thenardier was doing his best to present a fine , financially compelling air of respectability, but he was finding it difficult in the face of the trinity arrayed against him. That tall policeman, and the very mysterious man he called Mayor, and Fantine looking exhausted and dangerous with Cosette back in her arms–all of them staring at him, eyebrows fiercely quirked, as if to indicate some deep sense of judgement , both obscure and obvious, like the judgement of Providence on the plans of Napoleon, who totally lost to God, and not to the English. 

But not all those stern faces arrayed against Thenardier were raising the Eyebrow of Divine Judgement. The police officer Javert was truly unreadable. His face a mask, his voice silent as he had been since seeing Cosette, in her earlier tatters, eating scraps under a table in a room of well-fed adults who called on her to attend their every need.

Now, his face a mask, he finally spoke. “You’re a respected business owner in this town, and yet there seems to be an air of the criminal about you. Certainly your treatment of this child should be illegal, and yet I can remember no law that might convict you. It almost makes me think…maybe…the law isn’t actually a very accurate measurement of justice.” 

The “ Mayor” –if indeed that was his real name– blinked. “You know, Javert, you may be on to something. Could it be that society’s judgements are sometimes… unfair? That we all deserve a little more compassion from each other, and perhaps..even…ourselves?” He raised an eyebrow even higher, as if astonished by this consideration. 

“ I think what it means is I have to embody justice personally, so I’m just going to go full Batman and trounce these obvious but legally untouchable crooks” said Javert. 

“ …okay, whoa, let’s back these moral realizations up a step” said Jean Valjean, for indeed it was he – but perhaps it was too late, for Fantine’s eyebrow was now lifted into the exact arch that foretold Kung Fu Fighting in the near future, as the green tip of a spring branch foretells fruit in the autumn. 

Valjean could feel the great presence of Bishop Myriel quirking an eyebrow at him from beyond the sepulchre.

**Author's Note:**

> The cover for the BBC tie in edition of Les Mis has Valjean, Fantine , Cosette and Javert all clustered together in a canon-defying arrangement, with Fantine and Valjean dramatically raising their eyebrows at the presumed viewer. It's ...striking, and Thus this Very Serious Story was born.


End file.
